OneGuyFromBarlick

TEA BAGS

This week's subject appeared from nowhere. Tea bags are so useful! I know the purists tell me that we should use loose tea because it's better quality but as an inveterate tea drinker I have to tell you that I can't tell the difference apart from the fact that if I use a spoon to measure the tea I probably use more and brew it stronger. I always have a pot of tea on the go and brew it in a pint pot. I call it engine house tea because just like my days as an engine tenter, I brew it and by the time I have finished it it's cold and that doesn't bother me a bit.
However, I'm certain that most of you use tea bags but how long is it since you had a close look at one? What's it made of? Why is it it doesn't fall to bits in the boiling water? I'll confess that I never asked these questions until by accident, all was revealed to me! Here's my tea bag story.....
At one time I worked for Rochdale Electric Welding on boiler repairs and commissioning. Much of our work was out on site and we learned many things about how industry worked. I could tell you some interesting stories about fat refining..... but back to the tea bags! We were working at a factory near Bolton repairing the boilers and when we had finished that I was put with one of my mates, who was an expert boilermaker, to labour for him replacing some very big rivets in the 'kiers' in the main works. I soon found out what a kier is. Its a very heavily made iron sphere about twenty feet in diameter that is supported on two massive trunnion bearings, one of which is hollow to admit high pressure steam to the vessel. They were built for dyeing cloth under pressure and were rotated to ensure that the dye penetrated the cloth, rather like an enormous washing machine drum. A lot of them had been scrapped but two long rows remained because some bright spark had realised that they were ideal for treating clean wood shavings with strong caustic at high temperature and pressure. This breaks the wood down into a porridge and pure cellulose can be extracted from it. This is what tea bags are made of! This is such a big market that the future of these lovely relics of the days of proper heavy engineering is assured. Incidentally I asked a very old boiler-maker how the inch thick plates were formed to the shape of the sphere and he said that in the old days it was done by hand by hammering the white hot metal on a former with 28lb sledge hammers. No wonder they drank a lot of beer.
So, next time you brew up have a good look at the tea bag and remember the supermen who made those kiers over a hundred years ago.



The cup that cheers!

If you have ever tried composting your tea bags you realize they also contain plastic which takes years to break down. Most common brands contain 20% - 30% polypropylene.
(That's coffee in my mug!! )

Another very timely post - I had delivered today 1Kg of Chinese Yunnan black tea that I found on ebay at a good price. It's Taylors of Harrogate so I'm assuming it will be OK. I drink a lot of tea, and being naturally curious, I've experimented a bit. I make the leaf tea in a mug with a strainer liner. It's Lidl's Ceylon teabags for everyday, and Ceylon Orange Pekoe leaf for best.

This is a good place to experiment - Clitheroe Tea and Coffee Shop

Stanley wrote: ↑11 Aug 2017, 06:32 Tea bags are so useful! I know the purists tell me that we should use loose tea because it's better quality but as an inveterate tea drinker I have to tell you that I can't tell the difference

Perhaps something to do with your pipe smoking?

Possibly.......

We always bring our teabags to France with us. European teabags contain less tea than British ones, one of the reasons why the tea tastes insipid. When we travel on the ferry I have tea for breakfast as the coffee is far too strong for me at 6.00 am and the hot chocolate too sweet. I always ask for "deux sachets". Then it is just about drinkable. Last summer we had a crisis as we ran out of tea bags before we came home. Lidl came to the rescue, selling a good English brand.

Our local Super U supermarket has started having an English section with all the good old favourites at twice the price. Yesterday we saw Typhoo, Yorkshire Tea , and Tetley sitting on the shelf. At least we now have a very expensive fall back.

An elderly French visitor asked us for tea one day when her husband was drinking coffee. We have one of those little one pot teapots with cup so made her own little pot with of course an English tea bag. Oo la la...too hot and far too strong. We explained that you have to use boiling water straight on to the tea bag and leave it to brew before serving. She was shocked about the boiling water. But how do you drink it like that! Here you are given a cup of warm water and a tea bag in a saucer to dunk...just like the Americans.

My Californian cousin imports his tea from Harrogate. He spent sometime in the UK when he was in the American army. He says only the Brits can make tea properly...and of course my cousin!

Sorry about the italics, slight error on my part

No need to be sorry, you make an excellent point. I too recoiled from what passes as tea in the US and their coffee isn't much better either when It's been kept warm in those ubiquitous coffee makers!

Here's a keir. Not many of them left now....

Speaking of tea - this my current drug of choice. I'm a hopeless addict. Ahmad's Ceylon loose leaf. I've stocked up - so safe for a year or so. . . .

Mixed feelings about the origins of the product though - Sri Lanka is in a right mess at the moment.

I used to buy my tea in bulk from a man in London. I can't remember how I met him but the used to work for one of the major tea companies and got tired of always blending down to a price so he started his own business supplying the best teas he could find. He introduced me to the intricacies of Darjeeling High Grown Tips and many other delights.....

Bumped again.....

Wendyf wrote: ↑11 Aug 2017, 07:07 If you have ever tried composting your tea bags you realize they also contain plastic which takes years to break down. Most common brands contain 20% - 30% polypropylene.
(That's coffee in my mug!! )

An old post to quote from but relevant. PG Tips Black Tea standard pyramid bags are now fully biodegradable.

I'd better speak - as I have done so in previous outings for this topic.

I still drink copious amounts of tea, but following Covid I find my taste buds have stopped functioning, (or at least are not as discriminating as they used to be) and the subtleties of tea is mostly lost on me. I'm just about to open my last Ahmads 500g leaf tea, and it seems to still be available Ceylon Leaf Tea That's very good value for the quality. I might order some more.

Meanwhile I find that Aldi "English Breakfast" is good, and their Red Label - "Rich and rounded, the perfect Cuppa" is very cheap does the job reasonably well.

PS - just had a mug of Ceylon leaf tea, and I find I can still appreciate the better taste and quality. I've ordered some more.
Mr Ahmad can thank Oneguy for the order.

I suspect that over seventy years of smoking strong tobacco paralysed my taste buds.
Anything other than Tetley's tea bags would be lost on me now.
(You would be shocked I think by the levels of spice in my cooking.....)

One of my favourites is M&S Fairtrade Luxury Gold Loose Tea. You can buy it in the shop or from various sellers online - M&S doesn't do its own online food sales.

Noted. - There's an M&S nexst door to Aldi. I'll try it next time I do a shop.

I've entered it to Google Notes and pinned it to the top so I can check the name on my phone when I go.

It happens in the cloud you know - very 21st Century.

The cloud.... you lot remind me there are worlds out there that I have absolutely no inkling of.....